Musings on my favourite festival
Last Friday morning, at 6am, my husband and I are (quietly) building our sukkah.
The festival of Sukkot began that evening and for one reason or another, we could only find this time, before sunrise, to build our temporary dwelling space in our garden to honour the ancient autumnal Jewish festival.
We did pretty well, to be fair, within half an hour, the walls were raised, a roof was on, and the festoon lights were fixed. I hope you are suitably impressed! We are instructed to dwell in these little huts for the whole of the festival. I believe that some people really do. Others eat and drink in it. As in, if they are eating or drinking anything during this week, they're doing it in the sukkah. We take a slightly different approach; we try to use it as much as possible; hosting gatherings, inviting people for a coffee and a chat in it, and eating all our meals as a family in it. Except eldest son this morning who refused to partake, in his raincoat, with the rainwater dripping into his cereal. I suppose he had a point though I'm mighty proud of the rest of us - dog included! - who persevered and ate our breakfast together in the sukkah this morning.
Back to last Friday: In the afternoon, I went to a local rabbi's house to purchase the lulav and the etrog. The what?!?! The lulav is a collection of three branches, each from a different species (palm, myrtle, willow incase you were wondering) and with different meanings, and together with the etrog, a large yellow sweet smelling citrus similar to a lemon, they are the four species that it is instructed for us to celebrate with on Sukkot. How? By holding them together and shaking them and smelling the etrog. Rabbi's eldest son was delicately tying dried willow loops to hold the three branches together, and then putting them in these purposefully made carriers (long and thin, with handles in the middle) to give to customers to safely transport them home.
Random? Yep absolutely.
And I love it, along with the rain dripping into my cereal. And here's why:
It is so easy to live day to day without having any relationship with nature or the natural world around us if I so choose. It's easy to choose to spend time outdoors when it's hot and sunny. I love feeling the sun warming my skin, and breathing in the fresh air and sensing the new life all around at springtime. But when the dark nights start drawing in, when it seems to rain incessantly all day, its so easy to hunker down, turn on the heating, ignore the outdoors and live contentedly in my own built up existence.
Sukkot offers the chance to witness the change of season and truly dwell in it. To live in the moment. To feel the cool air before I try to hibernate from it in later weeks. To show gratitude for human innovation that protects us from nature's more harsh elements. To acknowledge that for some not so far away, and for others on the other side of the world, they don't have the luxury of these protections like I have. To commit to giving them a helping hand in these difficult months lying ahead.
I learned recently that each Jewish festival is a doorway through which we can enter God's palace (Neshama Carlebach - apologies if I have misquoted you).* Sukkot invites us to live in this moment. To appreciate. To be deeply grateful. To realign with our environment in less impactful ways, to manage with less. To give more of ourselves. To wave branches and smell fruit and dance and have crazy moments of joy that take us out of the humdrum of our routines.
I could write more. I could write about the celebration of rainfall when it comes to so many drought-ridden places on our planet. I could write about the tradition of inviting special guests to dwell in the magical garden huts with us during this special week. I could write about the fragility of life that the precarious walls and purposefully holey (and holy!) roof evoke. So many layers. So many invitations to see our world and our lives differently.
That's why I love this week, with all its bonkers rituals and traditions. That's why I love Sukkot.
*I know "God" is a problematic word - please stay with me; let's play with language and imagine God as shorthand for "seeing the world through a totally new lens where everything is connected and deeply meaningful" - maybe that can work for now? -
